


against the run of play

by criminiallar



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Football, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2324330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/criminiallar/pseuds/criminiallar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His biggest regret is Niall, is sleeping across from him on the bus for years and never letting his hand slide up the side of his thigh. Zayn has sharp fingers, sharp edges of bone; he has dreams of sliding his hips over Niall's and leaving red drags behind on Niall's skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	against the run of play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [niallszayn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/niallszayn/gifts).



> for niallszayn, who requested sports + slow burn. not quite sure this really qualifies as having enough of either, sorry! but there's pining and the h/c that comes after sports, and i hope it still manages to touch on a bit of what you were looking for.

The third time it happens, Zayn puts down his fork, shrugs into his jacket and flies straight to Manchester. He buys a newspaper in the airport, drinks coffee that smells of soured milk and medicinal plastic, and as the plane flies slickly down the runway, the stewardess taps him on the shoulder. There's a pale, frozen moment where he's still nineteen, and his knees are beautiful hinges, and when strangers touch him, they're asking for an autograph, a photograph, a glimpse of a smile.   
  
"Fasten your seatbelt," she says. The gold pin above her nametag is crooked, and Zayn folds his hands to keep from straightening it.   
  
"Oh," he says. "Thanks."   
  
They take off quickly, leaving the earth for some soft underbelly of cloud. The woman next to him smells of gardenia; it reminds him of the potpourri his mother used to put in little glass bowls and tuck away in corners of the house. They serve coffee and pretzels; Zayn nips the salt off with his front teeth, brushes the crumbs from his lap with precise strokes. He's twenty-six years old, with the instincts of a grandmother.   
  
Zayn rehearses speeches, but things don't always happen for the best and there's no way to predict  _the_  future, but there are ways and ways of prying tenuous whispers from the medical charts and cautious smiles of surgeons. Niall should have known, or someone should have told him, in between the press junkets and the Sky Sports interviews. Zayn knows all the statistics by heart, and none of them are in Niall's favour.   
  
Zayn's not sure what he's going to say. He knows that the last time he flew back home, a fan caught him outside LBA and begged for his autograph, said, "don't give up, I love you, you're amazing," and Zayn rushed by without stopping. He knows there are handbooks by respected sports psychologists that suggest bluntness. He knows that Simon called his parents when Zayn injured his knee because he was taking it too well, and they were afraid of how he was really coping.  
  
He knows that he has to say something, because it's been three years of too much silence for him to just show up at his place and expect to be welcomed like  _family_.  
  
The plane lands. These things happen. He's surprised and doesn't know why. 

 

It's not quite raining when the taxi pulls up to the kerb, but it will be. His knee aches faintly, a dull throbbing that makes it difficult to balance his bag against his hip. Zayn stares at the gate in front of him and then at the address on the crumpled piece of paper in his hand that's been lodged like a stone in his pocket since Louis rang him. Three years, and Niall still hasn't moved. It's sad how Zayn clings to that. He stands there for a long time with his finger poised over the button.

"Zayn?"  
  
He curses, clutching at his chest. Niall's carrying a bag of what smells like curry in one hand and a set of keys with a plastic ram keychain in the other.  
  
"Holy fuck, it _is_ you!" and the food goes tumbling to the pavement as Niall wraps both arms around him, starts to lift him in the air, even, before setting him down abruptly. _The knee_ , he doesn't have to say, and they both smile sheepishly. "I can't believe," he says, laughs, starts over. "Holy fuck! What are you doing here?"  
  
"I was in the neighbourhood," he offers up the blatant lie. "Wanted to see how you were getting on." Niall's face is slightly pink from the cold, and Zayn has to fight down the urge to ask where his scarf and mittens are.  
  
"Well, I'm alive," Niall says, "alive and not-quite-kicking. And hungry." He laughs as he picks up and tosses the ruined bag into the bin kerbside. "I've got pasta and Clonakilty sausage somewhere in the fridge. It's a little old—"  
  
"How old?"  
  
"Not very," Niall says, evading the question with a grin, passing through the gate. "It's not gone off yet, anyway, so it should still be good. I'm sure Alice left half a baguette—"  
  
"Alice?" and Zayn's face burns as Niall glances back at him.  
  
"Physical therapist." Niall waves her off as he fumbles through his keys.  
  
Zayn edges closer, tries not to hover. Niall smells good, like something you'd put in a pie, only not as cliched as cinnamon or sugar. "Not quite expired pasta sounds great. I'm starving."  
  
"Did I mention you're cooking?" Niall grins, and it's the openness that does Zayn in, the instant familiarity. Niall opening his door and his life back up to Zayn as easily as Zayn had shut his in Niall's face. Everything with Niall is always so easy, Zayn should've known - he thinks he did, and that's why he stayed away for so long. When Niall fits the right key in the lock and pushes the door in with a knock of his shoulder, Zayn says:

"You know I'm sorry, right?"  
  
Niall shrugs. "I know. Don't worry about it," he says, with a bump of their shoulders. Zayn jerks, though not away.  
  
He follows Niall inside, watches as he shrugs off his jacket and neatly hangs it up. Niall's wearing skinny blue jeans with a tiny, penny-sized hole in the seat.  
  
There was a time before Zayn started wondering about the taste and texture of the insides of Niall's thighs when they were actually friends, friends who had platonic fun and stayed up late Saturday nights because they liked each other's company, could have a wild night out but still be chilled out together, both at the same time. Realising that he wanted to _touch_ Niall, get close enough to breathe in the stale sweat and blood, maybe lick his neck, was nice in itself, but made it hard to be around Niall for any extended period of time. They'd been friends once. It seems like they might end up friends again, and Zayn doesn't know whether to be angry or pleased about that.

 

Zayn knows the history better than anyone, partly because he was there the second time, but mostly because he knows Niall too well. He wasn't there the first time Niall tore his ACL, going down in the FA Cup quarterfinals. He didn't have to be; he can close his eyes and see it like a filmstrip. Low-fidelity and grainy, Niall's body uncoils in the air, the muscles in his thighs contract and release sharply. Zayn doesn't have to look at his face to know that he's smiling. He's smiling when his knee buckles, still smiling when he slaps the grassy pitch with open palms.

There was surgery and rehab and notes of condolence from fans. Maura rented a flat down the street, refused to leave for a year. Pundits spin stories – it's what they do best - and they went on talk radio and bemoaned the end of an excellent career before it had even began.   
  
Zayn was there five months later when Niall kicked his first ball like a baby-step. It arced wildly, and the next wasn't much better. Zayn nearly swallowed his tongue, because a striker's touch, their control, had to be about as delicate as tissue paper, and there were about six thousand ways Niall could have ruined it.   
  
Niall looked over, smiling sheepishly. "Hey, not doing so good," he said, and sliced the next shot. Zayn kicked the ball back hard, and the sound when the ball hurtled pass his ear was deafening.   
  
Zayn wants to call it one of the most important moments of his life, but even he's not that melodramatic. 

  

They go to sleep early. Zayn tries to make his excuses, saying something about a hotel room waiting for him, even though there's no such thing.

"Fuck you," Niall says, clapping him on the back. "I've got plenty of room, and I'm a little tired" - he yawns for effect - "so let's skip the 'I couldn't' and 'I insist' and just say that you're staying here. Cool?"  
  
Zayn shakes his head, but says, "Cool."  
  
Niall cups Zayn's face with both hands. It's an oddly innocent gesture. If they both pretended not to know what they actually know, it might almost pass for friendly.  
  
"Good night," he says.  
  
"Good night, Niall." Zayn picks himself up off the sofa with a grunt, steadying himself on the coffee table, laughing when Niall has to do the same. They're a pair of old men in their mid-twenties. If someone told him that the rest of their lives would be like this, Zayn's pretty sure he wouldn't mind.  
  
He's halfway to the guestroom when Niall adds, "I missed you, you know."  
  
"Missed you, too," Zayn chokes out, and he's pretty sure his voice wasn't supposed to _crack_ like that. He's a grown man, and he's had his chance, and now with Niall three days away from surgery, now's not the time for another one.

 

His biggest regret is Niall, is sleeping across from him on the bus for years and never letting his hand slide up the side of his thigh. Zayn has sharp fingers, sharp edges of bone; he has dreams of sliding his hips over Niall's and leaving red drags behind on Niall's skin.  
  
It's like a highlight reel of memories, the good old days on rerun. They slept together in their practice shorts and nothing else, insteps against soles, all interlocking limbs and bruising knees and elbows. Zayn used to wake up with his nose buried in Niall's hair - he used Batiste dry shampoo, he always smelled like chemicals and coconuts - and one hand curled around Niall's left bicep. He used to close his eyes and count the soft pulses til he fell back asleep. They slept together, but they never slept together, because there were team rules like stone covenants, contracts and publicity stunts. Zayn is practical.  
  
He always thought there would be time, later.

 

The next day isn't as hard, somehow.  
  
Niall has a rehab appointment in the morning, which leaves Zayn to wander aimlessly around the city. "Meet you back here for lunch?"  
  
"Sure, around one?"  
  
"Better make it one-thirty." Niall sounds vaguely disgusted. "Rehab's going so well they might start me on the Pilates machine today."

"You know when you're going to have surgery?" he asks, as if he doesn't know. As if Louis hadn't called him. _"_ _He needs you, mate. He won't say it. But it's... It's bad. He might not..." Silence, and then, finally, "You know better than anyone."_  
  
"Two days," Niall says, frowning. His nose crinkles when he does, just enough so that three little lines appear between his eyes. Zayn's remembered every detail of Niall's face, so the lines must be new. "Got full range of motion back today."  
  
Zayn laughs. "You're an old hand."  
  
"Sadly." Niall takes a long drink, throat moving wetly. "Three's the magic number, though."  
  
"They come in hat-tricks."

"We crusty, injury-ridden vets have to stick together," Niall says after he rinses his glass, drying his hands then sliding black leather gloves on smoothly, and Zayn's not staring, not at all.  
  
"No one else will have us." Not staring. Zayn bites the dry skin on his lips and looks away, pointedly. "You should get going," Zayn says, pushing at his side ineffectually.

Niall goes, and Zayn is alone, and when Niall's not there, his house seems like a big empty temple. He stares at the neatly stacked dishes drying on the rack, the empty sink, the cutlery lined up like little soldiers. Their formation is sacred, it's one of the few connections between the Niall he knew and the Niall he has now.  
  
Zayn takes a long, long walk.

 

They trained together since they were Under-10s, broke into the reserves at the same time, joined the first team mere months apart. Football didn't exist without Niall, and Niall couldn't exist because of it. He couldn't have Niall _and_ football, but he could have _Niallandfootball_ , and it was enough.

Enough because the stupid thing is that Zayn still thought they were together, even though they weren't. The stupid thing is the love confession scenario Zayn had played out in his head, waiting for them in the indistinct but inevitable future. Not together, but not with anyone else, and they lived happily ever after.

 

It's been more than three years since he's touched a ball. It's something like a secret; his family wouldn't understand, not after twenty years of The Dream, Tottenham and Chelsea and Man U. His mum pecks him on the cheek, asks if he still plays with the lads, smiles when Zayn looks her in the eye and lies. It's not that he's scared. He just doesn't want to.  
  
"I could get a job coaching. Simon would take me on, if I asked. Hinted, even. He's a good guy," he told Liam the last time they talked. It was a month ago.  
  
"He is."  
  
"Even if I couldn't scrimmage, I'd still be useful. I could do stats.”  
  
"You'd be real good, Zayn. You don't need me to tell you."

"Maybe I'll go back to school. Get my degree or something.  _Do_  something that's not football for a while."   
  
Liam was quiet for a moment, then he said, "You don't have to do this."   
  
Zayn didn't ask what he meant. Neither of them is that stupid.   
  
Liam's wrong, Zayn knows. He knows it the way he can study the layout of a checkers game and know when he's lost - he knows it the way he knew his knee was ruined, for good this time, when he opened his eyes in hospital to the smell of peroxide. They had words for it, lots of them, in long complicated strands with  _ligament_ and  _fracture_ thrown in for good measure. To this day he doesn't know what happened; he knows that he can't walk down the stairs without gripping the banister with white knuckles; he knows the bone aches dully when it's raining; he can't feel his knee anymore, he almost cut himself banging it against the edge of a desk; he knows that doctors look at his MRIs and whisper 'knee replacements' behind their hands, and that's enough.  
  
Zayn could do things, but he doesn't. He doesn't know whom to blame for that. He doesn't know if it's a thing that can be blamed on anyone.

 

It was after the second time Niall injured his knee, six months after Zayn got out of bed at the hospital and nearly fell after his first step, and Niall was angry at his own body and Zayn was angry at himself for staying with Niall when he had a girlfriend and a career.   
  
"Sometimes I think you don't want to play anymore," Niall said. "Don't take it the wrong way, or anything, but you're pretty much healed. You could start training, if you wanted to." He meant it as complimentary, but it came out bitter and angry and  _wrong_. If Zayn'd been older and smarter, he would have walked out then and come back another day.   
  
"If I wanted to," Zayn said flatly.   
  
"You're tough," Niall said. "I don't understand what's up with you lately."   
  
"Are you saying that I'm wimping out?"   
  
"No," said Niall, slowly, as if Zayn were a small child, "I'm saying maybe you don't know what you want."

 

Niall texts him to meet at the nearby Indian place he missed out on his curry from yesterday, and he shows up a little winded, cheeks flushed pink.  
  
"How goes the rehab?" Zayn lifts his glass carefully and takes a sip of water. "Or would you rather talk about anything else?"  
  
Niall shrugs out of his coat, tosses it in the empty chair. "No, no," he says, pushing his sleeves up enough for Zayn to see bare wrists and a watch-tan. "Rehab's good. I think my leg's about to fall off from all the leg lifts they made me do."  
  
"Are you ready to order?" Their waiter is androgynously pretty, with smooth, unmarked skin, sharp collarbones and delicately tapered fingers. He could be every model on every fashion spread. Zayn's seen pictures of himself as a young boy, and he kind of looked like that.  
  
Niall doesn't even look up, reciting yesterday's lost order that Zayn seconds.  
  
"So." Niall laughs nervously, and Zayn can't help but smile in response. He's too cute, really, when he's trying to play host. Zayn's pretty sure that he came to Manchester to comfort Niall, and whatever he ended up doing, it isn't that.  
  
"So." Zayn plays with the sugar packets, aligning them carefully in the tray.  
  
When he looks up, Niall's trying not to smirk too obviously.  
  
"You're exactly the way I remember," Niall says.

"You've. You too," Zayn lies.

On the way back to Niall's house, Niall nearly trips on a raised portion of cement, and Zayn's there, steadying him with a hand in the small of his back, low on his belly.  
  
"Hey," Niall says, opening his mouth to say 'thanks' or something equally unimportant. His mouth is a red wound of colour in the grey; Zayn feels his own lips parting just a little. The street is mostly quiet, and traffic hums two blocks over.

"I'm fine, Zayn," he says quietly, and Zayn knows he doesn't mean just now. "You don't have to hold my hand and catch me if I start to trip over something," but they're still touching, and Niall doesn't complain about being babied, doesn't say anything about the mothering tendencies and the way Zayn's hand trembles as he pulls it away.

Niall's looking at him askew, and it takes Zayn a moment to realise that he's staring at the tiny freckle in his eye. It feels like he's moving closer, but really they're just rocking slowly on wobbly knees. Tiny motions, but Zayn's hands clench as they drop to his sides. 

 

They only talked about it once.  
  
"I want you to come to the end-of-year awards ceremony," Niall said. Zayn lay with his head in Niall's lap, twisting nervously as Niall threaded his fingers through his hair.

"Sure."  
  
"As my date."  
  
"Niall—"  
  
"Please," Niall said, and he arched his back a little, tongued his lips until they were moist. "Come on, Zayn."

He hadn't known what to say. He never thought he'd need to say anything, that this thing he carried secretly in his heart would ever be exposed before he was ready, before football had become a long ago memory he could set aside and brush off on the mantlepiece. He should've known better. Niall had always been brave. Stupidly brave and so fucking cocky. He always thought he could have everything. Zayn wished he was right.

"I like you," Niall said quietly, and it was both the most careful and most reckless thing he'd ever done.  
  
Zayn closed his eyes. "I know," almost too softly to be heard.  
  
Niall's laugh was strained. "Fuck, here I was pretending everything was cool, counting the times I touched you so it wouldn't look like... It wouldn't be obvious. You must've thought I was such an idiot."  
  
"Like that's anything new," he tried to tease. "Love you anyway, bro," he said, weak like a concession.  
  
Niall heard him the way he always did, stroked Zayn's thumb with the back of his hand. "Are we...?" Zayn nodded into his lap, pressed his flimsy assurance against the tender part of his calf. "Okay, then," Niall said. "Okay."

 

That night Zayn has a nightmare. It's a normal nightmare, the kind you can find and diagnose in trade paperback dream dictionaries that they sell in supermarkets. It's a normal dream, Zayn tells himself, and when he wakes up, his shins are covered in thin red scratches.

Niall doesn't have to be at the surgery center until noon, which means he'll probably sleep until ten. Zayn slides off the bed, grimacing at the tightness of his skin over bones, his swollen ankles. He catches a silvery glimpse of his reflection in the window, just barely visible against the layer of frost. He looks heavily bruised, a battered old man. It's been three and a half years since the accident, and it's still under his skin like an old sunburn, like if he just presses the skin hard enough, the colour will bloom again.

He slips into the bathroom carefully, avoiding any sharp counter edges and chairs that are pushed out just a centimetre too far. Niall has ears like a fox, or a bat, or something that hears everything, including what hasn't been said out loud.  
  
Niall has Brulidine, tubes of it lying around. Zayn picks two that are half-full, rummages through the medicine cabinet until he finds a Q-tip. He draws lines of it over each cut perpendicular to the slope, applies bandages to the deepest ones.  
  
When he's done, he takes the empty tubes and the Q-tip and the bandage papers, rolls them into a ball and tucks them under his shirt against his belly. They're cold, and he shivers a little, but it's better than being caught by Niall sneaking through the kitchen with medicinal supplies. Niall means well, but he's as nosy as his mother, and as pushy as Louis, which equals Zayn sneaking into the corridor with rubbish up his shirt.  
  
Niall's still asleep when Zayn gets back, so he brushes his feet off, curls into bed and stares at the ceiling. Zayn pulls a blanket over his legs and tries to close his eyes without trembling.

 

"I hate needles," Niall says for the third time as the RN raises an eyebrow at him. He looks ridiculous in a paper gown and blue slippers, a big smiley face in marker over his knee. Zayn drew it for him; Niall laughed uncontrollably the entire time, so the mouth's a bit crooked.  
  
"Relax," Zayn says, rubbing his arm, only Niall doesn't have a shirt on, so it's just his hand, and his arm, and quiet friction. Niall's skin is golden and gleaming, white where the glare of the fluorescent lighting impacts directly.  
  
"I am relaxed," Niall says. Zayn can see the big muscle in his thigh quivering, and if he pressed a hand against Niall's belly, he's positive he could feel his abdomen clenched tightly. His fingers dance loosely on the arms of the chair, though. Niall is a charmer, a performer, and always up to the task.  
  
"If you could," the RN says, gently stretching Niall's arm out. "There," she says, smiling.  
  
"We can't, ehm, do this after I'm out?" Niall's knee bounces up and down, clicking almost imperceptibly.  
  
"We only give gas to very small children," the RN says patiently. "It would take a long time to put you out. You'd have horrible hallucinations."  
  
"I see," Niall says. "So you need to do the IV now?" The nurse nods, and Niall whispers, "You know, I don't want to play that badly."  
  
"What did you do the last two times?" Zayn says. "Have someone kick you in the head?"  
  
Niall shrugs. "Well, last time I took a sleeping pill," he says, colouring a little, "and. Hey. Could you, ehm, let that dry a little before you put the needle in?"  
  
The nurse raises an eyebrow as she throws away the used alcohol pad.  
  
"It stings if it's not dry," Niall explains, sounding like a nine-year-old trying to talk his way out of a TB booster. "So. Just a couple of seconds. There."  
  
Zayn reaches down and grabs Niall's free hand, mashing it between his palms. "We'll get some Nando's when you come out."  
  
"I feel queasy after anaesthesia," Niall says.  
  
"You'll feel better this time," Zayn promises, and Niall looks like he believes him.  
  
Niall's blood is dark and rich-looking. Zayn thinks there's too much of it, but the RN seems pleased enough.  
  
"All done," she says, sticking a bit of clear tape over it. "You're all set."  
  
"That wasn't so bad," Zayn says.  
  
  
  
"It really wasn't," Niall says, his lips moving sluggishly into a smile. The lights are too bright, and they make his face looked washed out and pale. The recovery room is pretty much empty; they have that courtesy, at least, and the one woman working at a desk in the corner only looks at them every so often out of the corner of her eye. "Zayn," he says, and his lips are a little chapped so they're bleeding at one corner. "Did."  
  
"Operation successful," Zayn says, and hopes that Niall's not looking at the clock, because six hours is a long time to be in surgery, even for a third-time pro.  
  
The doctor, his physical therapist, Alice, all stopped by after and told him it had gone well, with few complications. The "few" instead of "no" was jarring - Zayn felt a buzzing in his chest, thought his heart was pounding so hard it had broken his breastbone, but no, Niall's all right, and his knee's icing like a spare liver.  
  
"Knackered," Niall says.  
  
"Want me to let you sleep?"  
  
"No, not tired," Niall says, trying to sit up. "I'm just. Heh."  
  
"Out of it." Zayn adjusts his pillow. "You should sleep some more."  
  
He yawns, and even though Zayn can see his tonsils, it's actually pretty cute. "Okay."  
  
Zayn stands there a long time, watching him sleep. At some point, the woman at the desk gets up and wanders away, but Zayn barely notices at all. The colour rises in Niall's face, making him look less like something sick and more like a normal person. His cheekbones are flushed, but not feverish.  
  
The second time Niall wakes up, Zayn's there, half-dozing with his chin on the silver guard rails that surround the bed. "Zayn," Niall says, half-laughing. "Wake up, Zayn."  
  
"I'm awake," Zayn rasps like he's been screaming for hours.  
  
"Can you—" Zayn slides an arm around his waist, helps him sit up. "Thanks." Niall closes his eyes for a long moment. "I'm ready to go home," he says. "Get the nurse?"  
  
"Sure. Do you want something before I go? Are you thirsty or anything?"  
  
Niall shakes his head. "I just want to go."  
  
  
  
Navigating the cab and the stairs – Niall insisted on sleeping in his own bed – was hard enough, and Niall was heavy and sleepy and getting cranky by the third time he almost tripped and fell. He threw up in dry heaves - his stomach was empty, the doctors told him not to eat for twelve hours - while Zayn rubbed his back.  
  
Zayn doesn't leave his side. Niall coughs, and Zayn rubs his shoulders; he licks his lips, and Zayn fishes in his coat pocket for chapstick.  
  
"Cold," Niall says, fingers pushing at the ice wrap around his knee.  
  
"Shh," Zayn says. There's a clear catheter in his knee, delivering drips of novocaine, a funny ice water bladder wrapped over that, keeping the swelling down, a prescription for Tylenol-3 on the floor with their coats.  
  
"Glad you're here," Niall says, drifting off again. A car screeches down the street outside - it's started snowing. There's half an inch of white powder on the windowsill, and it's been so long since he's seen snow, Zayn can't bear to brush it off.

Zayn arranges the blankets around his waist, letting his hands linger a second too long. Niall mutters something incoherent under his breath, so it's no harm, really, not if he draws his hands back, folds them in his lap. His knees are almost numb from kneeling by the bed, but they're practically numb when he's just walking around, so it doesn't matter.

"Shh," he says again. Niall doesn't move. His lips are a dusky red flare of colour in the low light.

 

When he wakes up, Niall's hand is on his shoulder, shaking him gently.   
  
"Zayn," he says. "Wake up."   
  
"I'm awake," Zayn says, sitting on his heels. "I'm awake. I'm sorry, Niall, go back to sleep."   
  
"You were," Niall says, then stops.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"Was it bad?"   
  
"Pretty," Zayn says.   
  
"You were talking in your sleep," Niall says, then:   
  
"What are you even doing here? You should get some sleep. On a real bed. I swear I won't die on you in the middle of the night."   
  
"The floor's comfortable. Good for my back actually."  
  
"Oh, I read an article about that," Niall says, frowning down at him, face scrunched in concentration before he breaks out into a huge yawn and falls back asleep.

 

Niall wakes up around six when his novocaine runs out. "Drugs," he says. Zayn fumbles with the childproof cap, cursing his own clumsy fingers and inability to function normally under Niall's gaze, finally shakes out two pills. 

"Want some. okay," he says, setting the glass of water back down as Niall swallows the pills dry. "Are you hungry?"   
  
"I could eat a horse, hooves and all," Niall says. Sweat glistens on his forehead, sliding down his temple slowly. Zayn brushes a washcloth over his face.   
  
His knees moan when he rises, but they're only ghosts of pain, and he has breakfast to cook. 

 

The next day is easier, somehow. 

Niall's feeling good enough to go without the pills, which says more about his stubbornness than the effectiveness of the pain management tactics. "I'm fine," he says, motioning for Zayn to toss him the remote. "Seriously. No self-sacrificing in this corner."   
  
"Right. You're a picture of selfishness."   
  
"Exactly. Glad we've cleared that up. Now get me a glass of water."   
  
"Get it yourself," Zayn says, making a point of not looking in the direction of the sofa.   
  
"Zayn!"   
  
"What?"   
  
"You're being mean to me," Niall says sadly. "What's the use of having you around if you won't get me a glass of water? I'm a cripple, here." He's sticking out his bottom lip in a pout, and Zayn's not looking, because if he does, he'll only break down and get the water, which is kind of self-defeating.  
  
"Nope," Zayn says. "Can't make me feel bad."   
  
"Where's your conscience?" Niall says. "You'll be- you'll be sorry." It would be a tad more convincing, Zayn thinks, if Niall weren't laughing so hard that he was snorting. "I swear, Zayn. You'll wish you'd gotten me that glass of water."   
  
"I'm getting it, you baby," Zayn says, unfolding from the floor with a groan. "I'm getting too old for this."   
  
"You're my favourite," Niall says, toying with the remote. "Get me some crisps while you're at it?"   
  
Niall keeps his crisps in the pantry, and his glasses in the cupboard to the left of the fridge. Zayn gets ice from the machine built into the fridge, toggling the lever so it doesn't come spewing out.   
  
"You're a pro," Niall says as Zayn emerges with several brands of potato crisps. "I love this movie," he says. It's a love story, a romantic story with a good ending. The man gets the woman, the woman's son straightens out, and nothing's perfect but everything's pretty good.   
  
"I miss this," Zayn says.   
  
Niall pauses mid-crisp, eyes darting down and away.   
  
"Me too," he says. "Our movie nights were awesome. I still have cravings for that shrimp dip Harry made."   
  
"And Louis used to bring those - those  _disgusting_  Turkey Twizzlers, and he'd try to make you eat them. That was pretty funny," Zayn says with a little laugh. "I still remember how the neighbours checked up on us that one time, you yelled so loud."   
  
"I can't help it, I've got powerful lungs. I've got  _projection_."   
  
"Good times," Zayn says. They watch television and eat junk food. It's simple, and almost good. 

 

Every day is a little easier. Niall's doctor makes a rare house call, and Zayn puts a hand on Niall's shoulder while he slides the catheter out. The doctor makes oohing noises at the new scar, saying, "It's healing well. Good news for you, Niall." It's red and raw, and Niall winces when he puts pressure on his knee in a way that makes the skin part, but the redness fades and the puffiness goes down, and the fifth time they change the dressing, Zayn believes for the first time that everything's going to get better.

"Looks sick," Niall says.

"It's healing," Zayn says, swatting at his fingers. "Your fingers are dirty. Don't touch. I'll get you a cloth."  
  
"No peroxide," Niall calls after him. "I'm dirty. I'm gross. I smell, too. I think today I'm going to attempt a shower."  
  
"Sounds good." Zayn returns with a soft cloth and a wide rubber bandage like a raincoat. "Need any help?"  
  
Niall studies him for a long moment and shrugs. "Sure."  
  
Showering is awkward and nervous and stupid, stupid enough that Zayn wears his clothes into the shower even though he gets a funny look for his pains. Niall limps in mostly naked, though, except for the plastic bag over the brace. Zayn avoids looking.  
  
Easier, Zayn keeps telling himself, it's easier every day. Niall is a natural on crutches, good enough that he holds doors for Zayn when he's in a good mood, and bangs percussion rhythms into the floor when he's not. The scar looks. Not better, but less angry, every day. Sometimes Zayn looks at Niall, and has to wait a moment or two for the horrible, sickening longing to surface, and that's progress.  
  
It is.

 

They only came close once, after a game against a team with no prayer, he followed Niall into the showers and slammed him against the wall, pulled Niall's jersey so hard there was a rip up the inseam that made Louis's eyebrows rise. His teeth nipped at Niall's throat, catching folds of skin between incisors that would leave twin bruised lines, he pushed his hand down Niall's shorts and licked the inside of his mouth, both things, at the same time. Niall let out a low moan, pushed his hips out; waited.  
  
Zayn jumped away like he'd been burned. Couldn't believe he'd done it, right in the open where anyone could've come in and seen. "Fuck," Zayn said, and pulled away. Niall's admission wouldn't stop replaying in his head.  
  
Niall nodded. “Still a no to that date, then?”

Niall would ruin them. Zayn ended up taking Perrie to the awards ceremony where he bumped into Niall who had a pretty brunette in an olive cashmere jumper on his arm.  
  
It was for the best, he thought, told himself over and over. Niall never brought it back up again.

 

Harry drops by after the surgery in an explosion of sweet-smelling things and crisp cold. "Bro!" Harry says, hugging Niall tightly.  
  
"Watch the leg," Niall says, but he doesn't mean it, because he latches on just as tightly, and when Liam and Louis come an hour later, it's perfect.  
  
Liam's stolen his nephew's Playstation, so Louis and Niall amuse themselves for an hour having FIFA round-robin tournaments.   
  
"It's not round-robin if there's only two of you," Zayn says, which only gets him shanghaied into playing as well. Louis is competitive by nature, and he kicks both their arses mightily.  
  
"So you've been here," Liam says once they're alone in the kitchen. "Two weeks?"  
  
"A week and a half," Zayn says. "Ten days, maybe."  
  
"You called me twelve days ago," and a pit opens in Zayn's stomach when he sees pity, of all things, in Liam's face. "Do you know what you're doing?"  
  
"Liam," Zayn says, in what begins as a reasonable tone of voice and escalates out of control, out of his throat like a spiral, "Leave it alone."  
  
"I can't."  
  
"You  _can_ ," Zayn says. When Liam doesn't say anything, he starts collecting plates, piling the silverware on one and the napkins on another.  
  
"Jesus Christ, Zayn," Liam says. "You don't have to clean up!"  
  
"I'm just," and Zayn opens his mouth, and his jaw moves, but there are words, somewhere, trapped in his lungs. "He needs me right now."   
  
"He needs his family," Liam says. "Bobby and Maura should be the ones out here."

"He can't- He doesn't want them to see him. He's been playing it off, like, you know how it is." 

"Anyone else, then. But _not_ you, no matter how much you want it."   
  
"I'm not," Zayn says.   
  
"You are." Liam makes a disappointed sound. "Thought you were going back to uni."   
  
"I am," Zayn says automatically. "In the fall."   
  
"Thought you were going to enroll for the spring term, Zayn," Liam says. "Thought you weren't going to do this anymore."  
  
Zayn shrugs, tosses the napkins into the bin. His body aches acutely; suddenly. There must be a change in the weather, he thinks. It was snowing when Liam and Louis came in; he looks at the window, and the panes are clear of frost.  
  
"Zayn, I love you. You're like my brother." Liam laughs, and it's a hopeless sound like defeat. "I guess you know what you're doing."  
  
"Guess I do," Zayn says. "Things'll work out for the best."  
  
"I hope so," Liam says. Zayn pretends not to hear. Zayn pretends a lot of things.

 

When he dreams about it, everything happens in slow motion.  
  
People - commentators, announcers, reporters, coaches and the like - were always talking about what made Zayn different from everyone else. "His pitch vision," one said. "His will to win," which was a little too close to "will to power" for Zayn's liking, but he'd take what he could get. "His heart," said more than one coach. Simon said nothing, but Simon always believed that he would only be good until someone better came along, and it was almost guaranteed that someone would.  
  
Zayn knows the truth: it's his sense perception, the way his mind processes time. Michael Jordan, who was his hero until he was old enough to know better, was described as having a jump so high that he could change his mind about what he wanted to do with the ball five times before leisure became necessity. When he got the ball, it was like a tiny sapling in his brain, rooting and branching out into possibilities of lobs and swerve shots and knuckleballs. When the press asked him what he thought made him special from other footie players, he always said, "My teammates," and meant it. Special is not the same as different.  
  
His football happened in slow motion. There were times when he poked his head above water and got swallowed up, but he learned. Better for time to move like molasses, stretching and folding long enough for Zayn to study the moving shadows cast on the pitch, than for everything to pass him by.  
  
When he dreams of it, everything grinds painfully.  
  
When they ask what he remembers, he tells them, "Nothing," and means it. Sometimes it comes back in slight fragments, a sound that triggers a foggy memory, a smell like burning tar and rubber. It might be Zayn just making it up; he can't ever really tell.

 

Zayn smiles when he sees Niall enter the studio, surrounded by a cloud of makeup artists and techies trying to attach mics to his shirt.

"You," Niall says, motioning him over. "You left me to suffer!" A woman runs a pink puff over his forehead, clucking at Zayn when he chuckles.

"The cafeteria called to me. Oh hey, did you know there's a Nando's right across from the—"

Niall groans, holding his stomach. "Stop. You're going to make my stomach growl on live television."

"We'll eat later," Zayn says, backing away as several men take their spots behind cameras. "Good luck."

He nails it, of course; he always looks good in interviews, when it's more than just sentences lifted from press conferences, when people actually have to look at him, and see this incredible energy working full force to subvert every defence of his victim.

"I mean," Niall says, leaning forward. "It's a setback. You can't deny that. There's nothing really good about surgery. The first one, maybe. It makes you stronger mentally, because you're out on the touchlines, and all you can think is, God, I really want to be out there."

"After the second and third," the interviewer prompts.

"After the next few times, it just." Niall smiles thinly. "Grates."

"And your plans?" the interviewer asks.

"Well," Niall says, winking in Zayn's direction, "I plan to get some Peri Peri chicken after we're done here."

"And after that?" 

"You mean am I going to play again?"

"That's the question everyone's dying to know the answer to."

"Well," he says, toying with the hem of his shirt, "I'm definitely going to come back."

"Or try to," and Zayn's on his feet, glaring at the studio producer, because who the hell does this guy think he is?

"There is no try," Niall says, with his best deadpan voice. It takes a long moment for the interviewer to laugh.

 

A month and a half passes quickly enough. They've settled into a routine; Niall goes in for physical therapy in the morning, leaving before Zayn's even awake. He comes back around noon, grimacing and trying not to. Zayn always has bags of ice ready.

Lunch is at one. Sometimes they stay in, especially when Niall's started a new phase of rehab and his joints feel achey and swollen. Zayn's not a bad cook, likes to think his mum passed on a few things, not that Niall ever seems to want anything but pot noodle and wotsits.  
  
"Perfect," Niall says, leaning back and patting his belly with a contented hum. "I might have to keep you on, Zayn, just for your cooking."  
  
"You think you'd get tired of it after all these years,” Zayn says with a roll of his eyes.

“Why mess with what works? It was genius then, and it's still genius now. Smartest thing you've ever done, probably.”

Other times they eat at the neighbourhood pub, when Niall's had a bad morning and just wants to sit in a corner and drink a pint without being interrupted by fans wanting to know if he'll come back after winter break.  
  
"How am I supposed to know?" he says.  
  
"They're just worried about you," Zayn says, frowning when Niall covers his face with his hand in mock-despair.  
  
"They shouldn't be." Niall sighs dramatically. "I'm not worried. You see me worried?"   
  
"You'll be back and better than ever," Zayn says.

"Won't need you around holding doors open for me for much longer."

More and more they go into the city for light shopping and different lunch options. It's not so bad, really, and even if there are stretches of weeks when Zayn's knee aches from the rain, he doesn't miss the sun at all.

"I thought you hated Manchester," Niall says.   
  
Zayn laughs. "I'm pretty much from here."   
  
"No, but really," says Niall. "You must miss LA." 

"You trying to kick me out?"  
  
Niall shakes his head. "Course not. But it's not like I want you here if you're not happy."   
  
"I wouldn't be here if I weren't," Zayn says. He leans his head back against the wall, lets his eyes close.   
  
"Tired?" Niall studies him intently. "If you're tired, Zayn, you gotta let me know."  
  
"No, no," Zayn says. "I'm good."   
  
After lunch, they pad around the neighbourhood. Niall wears flipflops against his doctor's orders and smiles the whole time.   
  
Around dinner time, they usually head back to Niall's. He's not a quiet person by nature, but there's a mellow core to him now that wasn't there when they were young and foolish and on the brink of conquering the world.   
  
"Let's watch a movie," Zayn says, and Niall doesn't object.  
  
They go to sleep around ten o'clock, because there's rehab early in the morning, and Zayn's making calls and figuring out programmes. If life went on indefinitely this way - if Zayn knew there wasn't anything else - he might call himself happy.  
  
He's in Manchester with Niall, who seems content to spend all of his free time entertaining Zayn. He's alive and decently healthy, and the nightmares come frequently, but they're dimmer than before, they bleed away faster than before. Zayn still keeps his nails obsessively trimmed down, though.  
  
  
  
Sometimes they go for long walks together.  
  
Niall says hello to everyone they pass, whether or not he knows them. "Hey, watch that kid," Niall says, winking at a harried mother who herds two little boys onto the pavement. She blows a strand of hair out of her face. Zayn gets the feeling that she doesn't appreciate the commentary.  
  
"You're on today," Zayn says.  
  
"I'm on every day," Niall says, sticking his tongue out and shoving his hands into his pockets. Zayn catches him looking at the park's junior-sized pitch and pauses by the gate entrance. It's basically empty; most of the neighbourhood parents have collected their children for dinner. Four balls line the inside of the gated enclosure along with a pair of beat-up cleats propped up amongst them.  
  
"Come on," he says. Today Zayn feels bold; today, Zayn can walk across an artificial pitch, laugh about the good old days, and it doesn't hurt.  
  
Niall points at himself skeptically, mouths,  _Me_?   
  
"You," Zayn says, holding the gate open. "I know you miss it."   
  
"I kind of... well, okay," Niall says, jogging a little. He's barely limping anymore, Zayn notices and just as quickly un-notices. Healthy Niall doesn't need him, and when the limp disappears all together, it'll be time for Zayn to go home.  
  
They walk the lines, or the places where the lines would be if the paint hadn't chipped away years ago. "Like being home," Niall says, off-hand, and Zayn fights to keep smiling. It's almost dark, and they should be getting back now. Half an hour after sunset, it's hard for Niall to see the dips and the rises in the pavement, and even though his knee's technically well, Zayn doesn't want to chance a freak sideways accident ten metres from his house.  
  
"We should," Zayn says.  
  
"Let's play." Niall passes a ball to him, and Zayn almost misses before old reflexes kick in.  
  
"I don't think so," Zayn says, passing the ball back. He pushes too hard, and something along the inside of his knee whimpers sharply.  
  
"I think so," Niall says, lobbing the ball at his face a heartbeat later with incredible accuracy. Zayn returns it with a header neatly, though.  
  
Some habits die hard.  
  
"You're feeling mean today," Zayn says, dribbling the ball. Three years of avoidance, down the drain, thanks to a streak of malice in Niall that's new but familiar and usually well hidden by humour.  
  
"Come on," Niall says. His face is a playful mask.

"It's not good for your knee," Zayn says.

"It's not good for my knee," Niall says mockingly, moving from side to side like he's most definitely  _not_ supposed to. 

Zayn wants to say that it doesn't matter. Niall was good and going to be great, and somewhere along the line all that changed, and challenging Zayn to a game in a child's park isn't going to make it better.  
  
He wants to say it, so he does. He's surprised at how good it feels.   
  
"Now who's being mean," Niall says, growling, and  _fuck_ , Zayn's turned on by that sound. It reverberates through his chest, pulsing there. Zayn's face is flushed, and he just wants to _punch_ that smirk from Niall's mouth. "You still got game, Malik?"   
  
"More than you," Zayn says, unzipping his jacket.

 

Zayn scores first. He goes in with an instep drive, and Niall doesn’t come in fast enough; he overbalances and flips himself, slamming down hard on his hip to avoid skidding on his knees. The ball slams into the net and Zayn looks down at him.

"Get up," he says.   
  
Niall takes the next two, both swerve shots. His scar's silvery pink, and Zayn can imagine its folds and wrinkles. "Got a game on," he says, stupidly, and when Zayn slices the ball right past his nose, he bites his lip hard enough to make the skin redden.  
  
They've attracted a crowd, mostly grandmothers and young boys, a few girls with piles of dark, silky hair on top of their heads. Zayn sees them only peripherally at first, then as light blurs, then not at all. Niall looks hot and slick, covered with sweat and dirt from when Zayn caused him to overreach for the second time. It started out friendly, but it's become this thing, animal competitiveness and brutal frankness, and every time Niall clips his body with a vicious shot, it's like honesty.

"Fuck," Zayn says as Niall shoots to his side and Zayn dives to parry the ball. A few idiots in the peanut gallery start clapping, but they're the minority. Zayn knows they must look ridiculous: two has-beens grunting and throwing around bodies that are out of shape, out of third strikes.  
  
Niall gasps for air, making a funny whistling sound with his windpipe. Zayn can taste blood in his mouth from breathing too quickly and too hard. His throat always bled the first few days of practice.   
  
"Good game." Niall pats Zayn on the back, limping toward the gate, and Zayn knows, quite suddenly, that Niall has no intention of playing again. There are a few still clapping, and Zayn feels a surge of gratitude toward them.  
  
"Thanks," Zayn says, to no one in particular - to himself, maybe, because everyone should have a chance to say their goodbyes.

 

"What do you want for dinner?" he calls out from the bottom of the stairs and makes his slow way up when there's no answer. He can hear Niall chattering happily, and it's only when he gets closer that he hears two sets of voices and sees that Niall's Skyping with Theo, who's looking more and more like his uncle every day.

Zayn drove Niall to the airport when Niall got the call that Denise started having contractions and was being rushed to hospital. Sixteen hours later, he woke up with a FaceTime call from Greg. "Hey mate, Niall just wanted to show you something," he whispered and moved the phone away so that Niall cradling Theo in his arms filled the frame instead. There was the softest look on his face and Zayn couldn't breathe. He heard Denise laugh quietly in the background and murmur, "Ok, give him back, now, you've hogged him long enough. I miss him already."

God, he must be around five now - Zayn's been out of the picture for more than half his life. He's got Niall's eyes, Niall's cheeks, Niall's smile, Niall's - Zayn squints at the screen – Niall's kit, apparently, in a perfect fit size.

"This is your Uncle Zayn I was telling you about! The one taking such good care of me so you don't have to drop out of school to check on me yourself."

"Well, you still might have to fly out sometime to help your uncle with his shooting skills. You look like you know what you're doing."

Both Theo and Niall nod knowingly, and it's ridiculous how cute they are. "You should see him, Zayn. Kid's a natural. Runs in the family."

"Don't doubt it. How long's this been going on?"

"Theo started about a year ago, right buddy? I've been after Greg and Denise to start him since he was two, but his mam wouldn't have it. Mine either. Almost clean took my head off the first time I dared mention it. Took two years of practising the _look_ ," he motions to Theo who pouts on cue, "but we finally got there. Come on, get up here," he says, patting the space on the bed beside him. "You got here just in time. Theo's about to tell us about his last practice."

"What's that?" Theo asks, after Zayn's tightly wedged in next to Niall, pointing at the scar over his collarbone. He feels Niall stilling beside him.

"I was in a car accident," he says. He hunches closer towards the screen, and puts his hand to his mouth in an exaggerated whisper. "Went through the windshield. Had a piece of glass this thick" - he holds his hands 30 centimetres apart – "stuck in my shoulder. There's still a little piece there, probably," he finishes with a nonchalant shrug.   
  
"Coool," says Theo, eyes wide. “Does it hurt?”

"Nah, just throbs a bit sometimes. A little reminder every now and then that it happened. It got my knee, too. Me and your uncle match," he says. Niall's presence is a reassuring warmth at his side, and Zayn allows himself this moment to sag his weight down against it, rest his chin on Niall's shoulder, and smile at the screen as Theo starts showing off his own little growing collection of scrapes and bruises.

 

The breaking begins - began, most likely, before Niall ripped his tendon clear off the bone through a metal screw. The breaking's always been there, maybe, and Zayn just hasn't noticed until now.

There are moments when Zayn looks at Niall, and he wants to make dinner for him, untie his shoes, wrap him in a blanket and fetch ice for his knees. Those are good moments, friend moments, honest moments.

There are moments when the light grazes perfectly off Niall's face, and Zayn  _wants_ , wants inside of him, wants him and every part of him.   
  
There are moments when they're friends, moments when they're something else, but never both, and Zayn thinks that's the breaking of it. If he wants to be honest, it started with the accident, when he woke up and felt disconnected from half his body, and Niall was at his bedside, holding both hands, and one hand he could feel, and the other, the other. For one wild second, Zayn thought the doctors had amputated something, but it was only the morphine and the novocaine dimming his nerves.  _I love you_ and _I want you_ , and there's some saying about the twain and never meeting.  
  
It all means that it can't last.

 

One day, Niall comes home and says, "We were going to be the best there ever was."

Zayn sucks in a breath and barely catches the mixing bowl before it smashes against the floor. "Er," he says smartly. Niall's gone off script, which is never a good sign. "What brought this on? _FourFourTwo_ release some special issue?"  
  
Niall sinks his teeth into an apple, biting a quarter of it off. "You know what they were calling us?"  
  
Zayn dips his finger into the brownie mix and sucks it clean, then tosses the bowl into the sink and says:

"They said you were going to be the best who ever lived." He was going to be, but he's not, and there's a discrepancy between the two that's unfathomable. Zayn leans forward against the kitchen table, inhales deeply. "I believe it."  
  
Niall opens his mouth, and the moment trembles between two slender lines.  
  
"Sorry," Zayn says.  
  
"Sorry what?"  
  
"I forgot you like to lick the bowl," he says.

  
  
Niall misses the resumption of the season. The media has a field day. One of the Premier League's PR reps calls the house every day at ten in the morning and leaves long, rambling messages about existentialism and the art of the hyperreal dive. "You're still the best, mate," he says, and Zayn can just imagine the greasy hair, the thin slit of a smile.  
  
"Did anyone call?" Niall says, flopping down on the sofa. It's going to be an eat-in day, Zayn can tell.  
  
"No," he says, and turns on the television. "It's been a relatively quiet day."

"We should go somewhere," Niall says suddenly. "It's so fucking cold out. I need some sea salt and sun remedy. And you're due for a holiday, Nurse Malik. You've been putting in overtime."

 

They go shopping on the boardwalk, darting in and out of overpriced gift shops. Niall's amassed a collection of shell necklaces, coral, conch and mother of pearl, and insists on buying Zayn a choker made out of broken white shell.  
  
"Cheers," he says, and lets Niall do up the clasp. Niall's fingers are nimble and quick, brushing sand against the nape of his neck.  
  
"You're a little sunburned," Niall says, and Zayn's back goes rigid when he feels Niall blow gently over reddened skin. "I'll put some aloe on that for you when we get back to the hotel."

 

Dinner that night's uncomfortably date-like, drinks on the terrace overlooking sunset on the beach while Niall orders everything in embarrassing Spanish (it's flawless, but he rolls his r's in an exaggerated, obscene fashion and winks at Zayn, who somehow still manages to be turned on by a complete idiot) - tapas plates of  _papas arrugadas,_ _calderata, churros de pescado, sancocho,_ and _potaje de berros,_ leading up to incredibly fresh butter-poached lobsterthat has Niall switching from pints to a bottle of white Rioja and topped with  _bienmesabe_ for dessert _._

There was always something about Niall and him weekending together. Nothing ever happened, of course. But it was the implicit intimacy of it - of shopping and coming across gifts for each other, of being seated at much too fancy tables for two, of waking up at five in the morning to pull your mate out of the club, because who else was going to do it? You became responsible, domestic. It wasn't like he and Niall hadn't been living together for months already, but there, they were friends, one helping another out. Here, there were the edges of shell against Zayn's collarbone, there was Niall's hand curled around a glass of wine. Here it felt more, and Zayn remembered why he'd always felt that sharp pang of loss mixed with even greater relief when their weekends away came to an end.

"You don't have to stay with me, you know," Niall says quietly later that night, when they're both sprawled out on their beds. "I know you must have things to get back to. Your own life."

Zayn laughs. "What life?"

"The one so busy it kept you away for three years." The words drop like a stone between them.

Zayn knows they're both too pissed for this talk. Knows it's happening anyway.

"There is no life. There's nothing," he says, fighting down the nausea and the headache that threatens to bloom at his temples, "I lost everything, and it fucked me up. Sorry," he adds, inanely, and then he coughs once, digs his fingers into the bedspread.  
  
"It's okay," Niall says, slipping into his bed and resting his chin on his shoulder. Niall is warm and sleek against his body. "Is that why you're here – to make sure it doesn't fuck me up, too? Because newsflash, it will. It's _football._ I'm gonna have to go through it, same as you. You can't protect me from everything, Zayn."

 _It will,_ and it has, and Zayn aches. "You don't have to do it alone, though."

"The way you did?" Niall curls closer. "You didn't lose everything, Zayn. You lost football. You threw me away."   
  
He closes his eyes, can't bear to look at Niall's face through his confession. "It felt selfish. To want you. Only after I lost..." he says, haltingly.

"You know it killed me when you left."   
  
"I couldn't stay," Zayn says. He's going to say,  _I had no choice_ , but it happens again, this freezing of time, and if he closes his eyes, he can see that first conversation, because Zayn'd been in love with Niall a long time, practically forever, really, and it tore him up to be an ocean apart. It was a volleying of accusations and anger,  _you could have_  and  _they wanted you, they kept your contract and you ran away_.  
  
"I didn't want you to go," Niall says. "I don't." 

"I- I was in love with you," is not how he meant to finish that sentence and as the words slip out, he inhales sharply and pain flares behind his eyes. He's never said it aloud before. He can't breathe.

Niall's quiet, and then he finally says, "I knew. Not at first. Not for a long time, maybe. Thought I was trying to see things that weren't there, soothe the ego, you know. But I got it in the end. I got you," Niall rolls away from him and his hands wrap around Zayn's, pulling his arms around him. His palms are slightly moist, his fingers thick and tense. "I know what you did. Always looking out for me, weren't you? You can't help yourself," he adds, softly.  
  
Niall pauses, stroking Zayn's thumb with the back of his hand. "Don't beat yourself up over it. I was a dumb kid in love, and you were the prettiest thing, all cheekbones and eyelashes and a chip shot that wouldn't quit. I didn't stand a chance. But you kept sight of things for the both of us. And it's been a great run. Premature as fuck, but. Amazing, right? Wouldn't trade these years for anything."

"Besides," Niall says, faux casually. "I always figured, you and me. We were a forever kind of thing."  
  
Zayn waits for a long time. He's waited eight years. Another few minutes won't hurt anything. He can feel Niall's heart, his spine down the center of Zayn's torso. There's something he's supposed to be doing, but everything he can come up with pales in comparison to lying here, curled around and against and under.  
  
"Zayn?" Niall says, after he's lost track of the minutes.  
  
"Mm."  
  
Niall shrugs out of his arms, turns to face him again. The mattress sinks where Niall's elbow and hip press down. "You're supposed to kiss me now," he says, toying with the collar of Zayn's shirt.  
  
"We've got time." Zayn brushes his thumb over his eyelids, and Niall closes them obligingly. His skin feels smooth and petal soft there, belying the calluses on his hands. Niall's mouth trembles a little bit, and Zayn's reminded again of how not used to waiting he is. Everything comes easily to Niall, and probably always will.  
  
"Hey," Zayn says, sliding his hands up his back, curling him against the bed.  
  
Niall opens his eyes, smiles.  
  
"Hey," he says, and when Zayn kisses him, he's pretty sure he can still taste the smile.  
  
Sex is slow and merciful and awkward, all twisting limbs and pressure and sheets that refuse to untuck. Zayn hasn't had a girlfriend in four years, hasn't wanted one in five.

Zayn cups his face, his fingers slide roughly into his hair and tangle there. He can feel the indentation at the base of Niall's skull, and when he presses there with his thumb, Niall whimpers and pushes forward.   
  
"Oh, god," Niall chokes out when Zayn's hand slips between their bodies, and Niall wraps his legs around his waist, pressing skin against skin until a red flush works its way up his neck.  
  
Zayn's toes curl and his back arches, and that might be a cramp in his quad but he's pretty sure he doesn't care at all. When Niall arches under his hands, melting into curves, curve of neck as his head drops to the pillow, curve of hip and thigh, his belly rising low, Zayn regrets nothing, can think of nothing but how much he wants him and loves him, and he's not sure but it might be perfect, it might be-  
  
Niall's forearm across his stomach, holding him down, and Zayn's head shatters into a million shards of bone and nerve and feeling. He opens his eyes, and Niall's there, face nestled in his neck, one leg thrown over his knees.  
  
"I love you," Niall says, and kisses him carefully until he falls asleep.

 

They don't talk about it after. This thing slips into their lives seamlessly, blending into the frayed ends, wrapping around broken wires. Niall has physical therapy, and Zayn's still looking at universities.

"You've got it bad," he says aloud to the bathroom mirror. The glass doesn't move. He can hear Niall in the salon, waiting for him, making noise to remind Zayn that he's there. They have a standing lunchdate, and Zayn's disturbing the rhythm.  
  
He takes a breath and steps out.  
  
"You vain bastard," Niall says without turning around.  
  
"Just want to look good for you, babe," Zayn leans in for a kiss, shrugs into his jacket, makes sure that the door locks behind them.

Niall loops their arms together, starts talking as if they've been in mid-conversation. "I have this daydream, right? I wake up and in my fax machine—"  
  
"Fax machine? What year is this?"  
  
Niall shushes him. "In my fax machine," he repeats, louder. "There's a letter. It's poor quality, so I can almost fool myself into thinking that it's, like, not real. Or a joke. Like Louis fucking with me."  
  
"Sounds like him."  
  
"Right? But anyway, I look at the fax, and it's from, I don't know, some minted name. Real upper class elite sounding shit. Some rep from some high end financial office, and he wants to meet with me. So I'm like, hey. I'll see what he wants.  
  
"So I go to his office, and it's an entire floor of this silvery skyscraper. Pretty ugly, but definitely expensive looking, which I guess is the point. I get ushered in quickly, because I'm important like that.  
  
"He sits me down, slides this thick contract across the desk, and it stops just before it's about to fall over the side. Very, I don't know, Mark Cuban-esque. He says he wants to bring us back together, and he'll pay any amount of money to do it. Us, like 'you and me and Liam and Louis and Harry, everybody' us. He was a big fan - just huge - when we were at Tottenham, and he wants to relive the dream.  
  
"So he buys out everyone's contract, and the next time we play, we're all together again, and we're still amazing. A little rusty at first, but once we get going, we're unstoppable. We're perfect. It's like home, I guess. It's hard to get back into it, but when we do, it's like this really great, familiar thing."  
  
"That's a nice daydream," Zayn says. He doesn't try to lighten his tone. "Too bad it'll never happen."  
  
"Hm," he murmurs, tightening his hold and deadening his feet so Zayn has to pull him along. When Zayn looks back, Niall's looking at him speculatively. "Yeah, too bad," he finally says with a smile.


End file.
